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palladias comments on Two methods on akrasia / unhealthy habits / addictions - Less Wrong
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One other approach to avoid constantly haggling with yourself (which I agree is draining and annoying) but without giving up the temptation completely is just to randomize whether you act on your urges.
At an old job, I used to want to go out to get a cookie in the afternoon a couple times a week. I didn't want to act on the urge every time I felt it, but I also didn't want to solve the problem by making afternoon cookies verboten forever. So, when I wanted a cookie, I went to random.org and set it to pick a number from 1-3. If it was a 1, I got a cookie, if not, not.
No decision fatigue, no being "bad cop" to myself, and I got to enjoy a thing I wanted intermittently!
A general form of deciding on a process and committing to it. Take the decision out of your hands. Ask the Magic 8 Ball.
A trick I've read (Baumeister?) is to just postpone the eating. Have a plan to have a cookie tomorrow. Or at the end of the week. Knowing that you're going to have one is supposed (has been shown?) to lessen the immediate temptation.
In the random and postponement cases, your mind gets the satisfaction of maybe getting a cookie now or surely getting a cookie later. That anticipation is supposed to have it's own satisfaction that makes the actual eating less motivating.
That is how gambling works, which is why I fear it can be horrible advice. Random reinforcement of expectations is more addictive than a predictable one. This is also why the Red-Pill types advice never initating and randomly reciprocating the affection of your partner. This an unethical, but also functional manipulation method, it forms addictions much more than predictable reinforcement.
Being addicted to a process that has you eating significantly fewer cookies could be ok.
How did it affect your desires for cookies? Did it stay the same? Lower? Higher?
The urge occured about as often as before, but when I did roll a one, I felt like I'd really lucked out. When I missed one, I felt good about having it settled, with no tsuris.
I'd tried Beeminding it before then (a cap per week) at it made it feel like I was using up my cookie slots when I went, muting my enjoyment, and meant I always spent a while mulling whether to go.